Eight over 80

Jane Schierloh, 80

As a young bride in the '50s, Jane Schierloh accompanied her husband — a Methodist minister — to a church-sponsored life-planning seminar. Participants were asked to write down what world problem they would like to address during their lifetime.

"I wrote down poverty and racism," the longtime educator chuckled. "I was 25, and I did not pick one big problem, I picked two."

To say Schierloh fulfilled that promise — as difficult and as daunting as those social challenges are — is not an overstatement. Over more than a half century, the Toledo native helped hundreds of Clevelanders climb out of poverty by teaching illiterate adults to read and creating GED curriculum; tutoring first-generation college students in algebra and/or helping them apply to a four-year university; and even starting a scholarship fund in the name of her late parents to provide money for tuition and other educational expenses.

From her Willoughby residence earlier this month, Schierloh said her life work all ties back to that seminar and an early recognition of the relationship between poverty, racism and education.

"I set out to improve the education of people in the Cleveland area," she said. "And that's what I have done, not by myself but with the help of many people."

Schierloh's work in education began as a school teacher. With an undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's in education from Harvard University, she taught in schools in Akron and Fairview Park before taking an 11-year hiatus to raise three children.

In the mid-'60s, Schierloh accepted a position at Merrick House in Tremont where she landed a grant from the George Gund Foundation to start a GED program for area adults and authored her own GED writing prep book. From there, she joined Project Learn, and with grants from Gund and the Cleveland Foundation, expanded the Cleveland adult literacy program with new classes in literature, history and letter writing.

"Gun control was a big issue then, and we wrote letters to the Plain Dealer for and against," she recalled. "Three of them were published. Well, you can image when they saw their letters in the newspaper. It was very empowering."

In 1995, after earning a doctorate at Kent State University, Schierloh joined Cuyahoga Community College's Student Support Services (SSS) program, which provides a variety of support services to low-income/first generation students. Her official title was student adviser, but longtime colleague Gerry Nemeth, a math tutor, said she did "so much more."

Many of the students are weak in math, according to Nemeth, so Schierloh attended Ti-C math classes and wrote study guides and supplements for students. (She self-published nine paperback guides on beginning algebra including one called "I Hate Word Problems!") If a student needed a form or signature from a Tri-C department they did not know, Schierloh wouldn't just give directions, she would walk with them. She encouraged dozens of Tri-C students to transfer to a four-year college, assisting them with applications, finding scholarships and even driving them to campus visits.

Such is the case of Magda Gomez. Schierloh escorted Gomez, a single mother of two when she enrolled at Tri-C in the mid-90s, to John Carroll University. She assisted Gomez with the JCU application and, most importantly, identified scholarship opportunities.

"I did not think I could afford to go to JCU," said Gomez, who today is Tri-C's director of diversity and inclusion. "When I won a scholarship from a Chagrin Valley women's group, which she helped me apply for, Dr. Schierloh went with me to accept the award."

In 2014, Gomez said, students, alumni and colleagues surprised Schierloh with a pre-retirement ceremony. She was just one partygoer who shared stories of Schierloh's impact, which also included one man for whom Schierloh and her husband provided a scholarship.

"She had the credentials to work anywhere," Nemeth said, "but she liked working in the trenches with students who really needed her expertise the most." — Judy Stringer

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